Trademark
A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or other indicator owned by a person or organization and used to identify their products or services. Trademarks are used to distinguish products or services from those of other people and organizations and help prevent unauthorized use of others' intellectual property (ownership of ideas). A product or service does not need to be trademarked to be put on the market, but that is at the risk of another running off with the identity and accusations of theft. A trademark is either marked with ™ (unregistered trademark) or ® (registered trademark). The concept of trademarks is regularly confused with that of copyrights, which is the intellectual property dealing with the right to publish, maintain, adapt and sell original work. Information on trademarks in the USA can be found on the site of The United States Patent and Trademark Office and Trademarkia. Keeping track of these websites provides insight as to what the future may have in store for Ever After High, and often these findings are the first publicly available information about a new character, product, or feature. Aside from the trademark itself, information about the new 'thing' is revealed in the product/service category it is filed in. * The term "toy figure" tends to indicate a pet. * The term "doll playset" tends to indicate a playset for the dolls, which is anything from furniture to landscapes and vehicles for the dolls to interact with and in. * The terms "dolls, doll clothing and doll accessories" turns up the most and can mean two things. Either it indicates an accessory or doll line, or it indicates a character and doll. A lot of the early trademarks are categorized as "games and playthings; gymnastic and sporting articles not included in other classes; decorations for Christmas trees; all goods in this class". Given that there were a number of "High" trademarks made at the same time as "Ever After High" that turned out to mean nothing and that Hunter was trademarked well before anyone else in the more sensical "dolls, doll clothing and doll accessories" category, the thing that most likely happened is that Mattel purposely requested false trademarks, purposely delayed trademarking the characters, and purposely had them trademarked in peculiar categories to confuse competing businesses. The Ever After High trademarks are filed by Matt Solmon, who's handled the Monster High since September 2010. Note that this means that it is not always clear when a trademark is filed if it is for Ever After High, Monster High, or maybe even neither, because the only distinguishable elements are any pun or keyword present in a trademark and any keyword present in a category. The "future trademarks" section is a list of trademarks interpreted to be more likely related to Ever After High than to something else and for the same reasons lacks trademarks interpreted to be more likely for something other than Ever After High. Past and current trademarks Characters Ever After High Other Future trademarks Unused trademarks * Cosmic High, High Seas High, Luna High, and Robo High likely all were meant to be high school franchises like Monster High and Ever After High. Category:Franchise